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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23233945">Self Discovery</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafa_DD/pseuds/Lafa_DD'>Lafa_DD</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Invaded Drabbles [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Invader Zim</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:56:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,172</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23233945</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafa_DD/pseuds/Lafa_DD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dib found out a few things about himself, things start going downhill around him</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Invaded Drabbles [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670482</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Part one of my Invader Zim drabbles, i will do more in the future. When? No one knows for sure</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“W-what in the…?” I Couldn´t believe what my eyes were showing me. It was, far beyond all my expectations, and for once, I disliked finding the truth. I felt ashamed, and creeped about my discovery, my eyes couldn’t avoid staring at them, floating, unconscious.<br/>
I felt a hand lay down in my shoulder, I didn’t have to be a genius to guess who it was. Dad. He was going to say something, I could sense it, and thus, mi instincts made me run as faraway from that place as possible. I locked myself in my room and pulled the blinds down. I didn’t want to talk, nor see anyone. I just wanted to process the information I just received.<br/>
Dad knocked on the door a couple times, said things like “I can explain it son” and “Please, listen to me” “You are being irrational”. That last one sent me off.<br/>
“Shut up.” I didn’t even scream, there was no need for it. “I don’t want to hear a word coming from you, Mr. Membrane” He didn’t try anymore after that. Gaz tried to talk with me as well, she seemed slightly concerned. I bet dad told her to come and speak to me, hoping I would listen.<br/>
I was locked in there for more than I can probably remember, all I know is that I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat, and I didn’t care. About anything. Not even Zim. In fact, one of the few things I remember clearly was disconnecting my computer, the cameras, erasing my Swollen eyeball account, everything.<br/>
I was done with that crap; I was done with crap in general.<br/>
I probably spent the rest of the time thinking, about what? That is something I cannot remember. And so, time went on, and on, and on, tic, tac, tic, tac. I could hear everything in that silent peace, from my sister playing in her console, to the birds’ winds flopping, and it was stressing me out.<br/>
Eventually, I heard something that pierced through my ears: the alarm clock. Was it already Monday? Those three days had felt like hours.<br/>
“I have to go to class, after what happened las week I can’t get in any more trouble.” I muttered. What happened last week? Unsurprisingly, a Zim based incident, that of course, had to involved me. But not anymore.<br/>
I grabbed the clothes from my closet without even looking, I later on figured out it was a white shirt, with a simple pattern on it. I grabbed my black coat, not because I wanted to wear it anymore, but because it was the only jacket I owned (stupid, I know), put my glasses on, picked a back pack, I wasn’t even sure what was inside it, honestly, and left the house. I didn’t say goodbye, why should I, anyway?<br/>
I went walking to school that day, I figured that fresh air wouldn’t hurt, and once I got inside class, I just sat in my desk, overhearing whatever Bitters was trying to explain to us. I didn’t care much, I couldn’t care, not after everything that happened.<br/>
“I’m sincerely sorry Miss Bitters, I was late for things that have absolutely no relation with destroying Earth and its inhabitants.” He was late? I didn’t notice it until he entered the room shouting, like usual. I stared at him for a brief moment, and everyone looked at me at the same time. I didn’t say anything, I just sighted, and went back to staring at my empty notebook. The class began to whisper until the teacher made them all silent.<br/>
Lunch time eventually arrived, and I decided to stay inside the class, I wasn’t hungry. Someone approached me. “Greetings human worm Dib”<br/>
“Hi Zim...” I kept staring at my paper, in which I had began to doodle random stuff after the first period<br/>
“Yeah uh… I was just going to let you know, my self-proclaimed nemesis that I was going to begin phase three of my plan this afternoon, so you could try to stop me and fail in the process, it would be a nice show to watch while I DESTROY YOU AND ALL YOU CARE ABOUT MUAHAHAHA!!”<br/>
“Kay, whatever.” I didn’t even bother to listen to him, what was the point anyway? I mean, if the irken empire took over earth, would that even change something? The earth had already been through a lot of megalomaniac dictators, plagues etc and here we stood, making jokes about it. I could already see the memes. It made me crack a smile, that vanished shortly after. I finally faced up to see that Zim was still there, staring at me, he had taken of his wig and contacts.<br/>
“Are you not…going to try and expose me?” I shook my head. There was an awkward silence before he left, after readjusting his “disguise”<br/>
The rest of the school day went similar, nothing interesting happened, and if it did, I only over heard it, or completely ignored it. Thus, it was time to go home. Gaz followed behind me, and I sometimes felt she wanted to say something, but she didn’t, she kept focusing on her “Crossing Animals” game.<br/>
Mr. Membrane was waiting for us at the door, he clearly wanted to “Talk with his son”<br/>
“Go ahead then, they are in your lab, like they have always been.” I stared at him, dead in the eyes. “ “018” has other things to do.” And just like this, I continued walking. Eventually, I entered the more “crowdy” part of the city. There were a lot of people here, and knowing that none of them knew me made me feel, in control for once in my life.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Social life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>While walking around the city, Dib begans to socialise with those around him</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, Dib is going to talk with new (And old) peole? Will he make friends? One thing's for sure for a paranormal investigator he does have bad perception</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I wondered around town for a while, asking myself what I could do. Nothing seemed interesting, and as a productive person, it stressed me out. Not doing nothing was weird, time stayed still yet it kept moving. Without realising it, I began to wonder about time travel, and how it apparently, never ended well. Membrane once built a machine able to send objects to the past, and Zim used a nearly identical device to kill me. Well, to kill “Another me”. I can never be sure if he was trying to get rid of me, or of another clone, which my father just exploited to test advanced weaponry in, since I recall having a robotic exoskeleton at some point.<br/>It made me realise a lot of things about myself, from the one time I turned into bologna to switching bodies with GIR at some point. The reason everything seems to reset is because I am just a different Dib. I’m not the one who lived those memories, they just got implanted in my brain for some reason. But why? If that was the case membrane must believe, must know of Zim’s existence. He created me, and made me remember all those things for a reason. Right? Right? Perhaps I’m just trying to-</p><p>“Are you okay? You’ve been talking to yourself for quite some time now…” I heard a voice behind me that snapped me out of mi thoughts, besides me was a teen, he seemed to be a few years older than me, about 16 or so.</p><p>“Oh, yeah I’m fine, just being weird is all” I was about to continue with my path and ignore the boy, but he kept trying to talk with me, like he didn’t want me to leave for some reason.</p><p>“It’s fine man, I used to be the “Weird kid” as well. Let me guess…Dib?” I nodded slightly. How did he know my name?” I used to be at Bitters class as well I’ve seen you sometimes fighting with the alien kid, I’m Todd, but my friends call me Squee.” So, he was the “Squee” Bitters told us about? The scared-cat? He seemed quite confident. But then again, people change. It took me a few seconds to process the whole sentence…</p><p>“You…know Zim’s an alien?”</p><p>“Yeah, I mean, it is pretty obvious. Plus, as someone who got abducted when I was younger, it’s way easier to tell. Then again if I survived a crazy serial killer neighbour, and the antichrist aliens are nothing out of the ordinary for me.” This guy, was definitively crazy. The aliens part? Yeah, sure, that was true, I believe him. But the other things? Eh... hell no. There has never been a maniac in town, I would have heard of it, I would have investigated about him already. And the whole Antichrist thing was just religious propaganda, as membrane would say “Not scientifically possible” I tried to back away as fast as I could while he kept rambling. Do I sound like that when I talk out loud?</p><p>A few more minutes of walking and I found myself eating a sandwich I bought, alone in the park. I didn’t do much, just enjoyed the view, and occasionally check my phone. No new messages. I guess Gaz really does not care. I can’t blame her though. I wouldn’t care either.</p><p>I eventually saw some guys from class hanging out: Zita, Chammy, Keef and the guy? Girl? I wasn’t even sure to be honest, that always wore a red hoodie and kept on doodleing in class. Should I go say hi? They all think I’m crazy… but I have to stop thinking about stuff, and they seem like a cool group to hang out with, plus I bet Chammy wouldn’t have any issue. Right? Awkwardly I decided to approach them.</p><p>“Hey, what a coincidence huh?” They stared at me in silence, Keef eyes were specially disturbing, the red irises and tiny pupil made it look spine chilling.</p><p>“Hi Dib!” Exclaimed enthusiastically the shortest of the group “How are you doing? What about your sister? Are you and Zim friends already? “ I was bombarded by a thousand of questions.</p><p>“Cham chill” said Zita “you are going to scare him” Despite being in the same class for our whole lives, we never really spoke much, just the occasional “you are delusional” and “take that back” shit. However, she seemed nicer than what I originally though.</p><p>“I don’t think we have introduced each other properly?” I said looking at the second shortest” My name is-</p><p>“Dib Membrane! Self-proclaimed defender of earth! Your mission is to stop Zim from conquering the world. But you are known more for being a crazy kid with a big head. “I eh... huh? I was confused, I didn’t even try to understand whatever words were being said, it was way to fast for me to get it.” My name is Recap! “What a weird name. But I’m no one to judge, it’s not like someone in this city has a normal name anyways.” Nice to finally meet ya! This is waay better than watching from behind the scenes!”</p><p>“Uh… Same, nice to meet you Recap.” Despite the hyperactivity, they seemed nice. It didn’t take long to get used to hanging out with them, it might have only been for a short amount of time, but we ended up getting along quite well, heck I even managed to get their cell phone numbers, this was a new record!</p><p>Eventually Zita had to leave and Cham went with her, since apparently, they lived close to each other, Recap said they had to leave or they would miss the re-run of “The nightmare begins” an episode of a show which name I didn’t manage to make out. So, it was just me and Keef.</p><p>“Dib, do you have to go home soon?” He asked. I told him I wasn’t planning on returning for a while. “If that’s the case perhaps you’d like to stay at my place? Is a few blocks away, and I doubt my parents would mind me inviting a friend for once.”</p><p>“You consider me a friend?”</p><p>“Well yeah. This afternoon has been fun, and I always thought you were an "interesting" guy.” I wasn’t sure if he meant interesting in a bad way or not by the way he said it, but I stayed silent” Plus, there are a few things I want to talk to you about.” And thus, we went to his house, it was a relatively normal home, nothing that stuck out to me at plain sight.</p><p>“Wait, I’m going to tell my family I’m staying here for the night, so they don’t get worried. “And by “They” I meant Gaz.</p><p>I texted her and a few minutes later, I got a notification. I had a message from Gaz, and one from an unknown number. “Kay. Whatever” was clearly from my sister, the other one? I didn’t want to know; I just blocked the number.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Secret exchange</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Keef and Dib talk about some stuff. Some deep, some dumb.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter is mainly dialoge based, so there won't be a lot of descriptions, please keep that in mind</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’ve already told my family about it, it’s cool” I said, placing my phone back in my pocket. “You said you wanted to talk about something?” Keef nodded.</p><p>“Take a sit dude, this is going to be…uh…relatively shocking?” he sounded dubitative in those last words, I sat on the couch in his living room, and took a sip from the drinks he had placed on the small table in front of the couch. “ Zim ripped my eyes off. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about Dib, I saw you looking at my “eyes”” He made commas in the air while saying that last word.” He replaced them with this weird ass scanners, I literally see Zim every time a squirrel is in front of me.</p><p>“Okay, first of all: Why are you acting so neutral about that? HE COULD HAVE KILLED YOU! Second of all: So you knew Zim was an alien all along? Yet you didn’t help me? If you had told me sooner we could have stopped him from conquering earth, make sure whatever happened to you didn’t-“ I was interrupted.</p><p>“You have no idea how it feels like Dib. Knowing it, yet being unable to do anything. For god sake you are a Membrane! You have access to all the technology you need to defend yourself! But the rest of us DON’T Dib. You want us to risk our life just for you to be famous? To have “discovered extra-terrestrial life”? “He seemed really pissed off by my comment. But what about it? I was right! Together we could have stopped him! I could have been the hero I was always meant to be!” Get this into your big ass head Dib. We ALL know Zim is an alien. We just don’t want to die. We appreciate our life Dib. What’s so wrong with that? We are humans Dib, we can’t come back to life, once we are dead, it’s over, forever.” We are all…humans? We can’t come back to life? Liar.</p><p>Keef stayed silent for some time, then his tone changed “Look I... I didn’t mean to talk like that okay? I have trouble with anger management sometimes, I’m sorry. “I was quiet for a while; we could both hear the sound of traffic outside the house.</p><p>“I guess I am a selfish prick huh?” I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, just myself” I’ve put so many people in danger: my sister, my classmates, strangers, friends…and all I have done is hurt them. I didn’t even realize that I was being killed as well, I just processed those as...nightmares. Silly, disturbing nightmares that even got “me” into a mental hospital. Perhaps everyone is right, perhaps I am crazy…But what about- “I got interrupted once again.</p><p>“Well we are definitively going to think you are crazy if you keep talking to yourself man. “ I stared at Keef</p><p>“Do you hate me?” I asked, bluntly</p><p>“If I did, would I have invited you to my house? Or even be talking to you right now?” I didn’t know what to say. “ I just wanted to tell someone the truth. And you just wanted someone who could “relate” to you in a way. I guess we just wanted a friend.</p><p>I sighted “But what about Zita? What about Chammy and Recap? Do they...know this? The eye thing, I mean.”</p><p>“I don’t think Zita or Cham do, but Recap is definitively aware of it, I’m telling you man there is something weeeeird about them “ Keef kept making weird noises and moving dramatically, I eventually started laughing.” Do you ever feel like there are four of them?” I nodded in agreement</p><p>“Yeah! Like, they move so fast its incredible!”</p><p>“Perhaps they are like clones of the original Recap or something!” I stopped laughing. It was that word again… “ Clone” “ Are you Ok dude?”</p><p>“ Keef, can I tell you something?” He silently nooded” Since you have told me your secret, I’m going to tell you mine. I found about it on Friday, so I’m as confused as you are probably going to be." I took a deep breath "Ugh.. how do I say this? I’m not Dib? Like, yeah, I AM Dib, I’m just not like, the same Dib as some time ago?Like sure people change with time, but I don't mean it that way? What I’m trying to say is that I’m like... a clone? Of my dad? When he was younger?? UGH I CAN’T EVEN EXPLAIN MYSELF I-</p><p>“Your secret is safe with me Dib bro” What did I just hear? “ I believe you “ He. He believed me? ” I’m going to assume, judging by your expression that you are...Happy?”</p><p>“Happy?! I’m more than happy at the moment! Like, yeah, the fact that all my life has been a lie is soul crushing and it makes me feel like shit but like, having someone who trusts me? Who I can trust? I’ve never felt something like this before, you know, being the “weird kid” and all.”</p><p>“Can’t relate.” He said “I’m not sure if you noticed but mi quite a popular guy”</p><p>“Aw shut up” I said “You have like, 3 friends, I wouldn’t call that being popular”</p><p>“Four. I have four friends” He corrected me, with a dumb smile on his face</p><p>“Yeah, I guess I am number four now” I smiled back</p><p>Keef and I spent some more time chatting and making jokes, despite the serious way our interaction had begun like, all the tension was fading away, and it was like talking to someone you had known for your entire life, his parents eventually arrived and Keef asked them if I could stay tonight. They were a lovely couple, were my parents like that? I never met my mother, if I even had one, so I couldn’t tell.</p><p>We ate dinner while watching TV, and went to sleep. Before laying down on the mattress they had prepared however, I received a notification.</p><p>“Hey, is it OK if Zim sleeps in your bed tonight?” I was really tired so I answerd with a “yeah” and prepared to fall asleep.</p><p>I then processed what Gaz had ask me for.</p><p>Zim was sleeping in my bed.</p>
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